JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: Northern Ireland father and son raise £2,000 for SPUC by fasting on Christmas Day

Sunday, 1 April 2012

Northern Ireland father and son raise £2,000 for SPUC by fasting on Christmas Day

At last month's conference in Belfast, Defending the Rights of Parents, Protecting Children, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children were presented with a belated Christmas gift by the Woolsey family.

Pictured are yours truly, Kathy McQuaid of SPUC Northern Ireland and Gordon Woolsey.

This is Gordon Woolsey who contacted us in late November 2011, to say that each Christmas for the previous four or five years he and his father, Don, had undertaken a sponsored fast on Christmas Day to raise money for one or two charities. They had decided that their next fast would aim to raise money for the Irish Mission of the Presbyterian Church and SPUC. We provided them with promotional material, flyers, T-shirts, badges etc. and through their business, (they run a petrol station) they gathered donations organised a raffle for a mountain bike and distributed literature and little feet badges. In total they raised £4000 and divided the sum between the two causes. Unfortunately Don wasn't able to come to the conference for the presentation of the cheque.

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.